U.S. journalist tells story of Iraqi who killed his son for dealing with Americans

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: A lecture Thursday by an award-winning journalist conveyed the bloodshed of the war in Iraq through the story of a small town there and a family’s agonizing choice, according to a report by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel newspaper. Anthony Shadid, a Middle East correspondent for The New York Times and a two-time winner of the Pulitzer Prize, said that human stories were needed to give meaning to the statistics of violence in the country. Shadid spoke to an overflowing auditorium on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, his alma mater. “If I’ve learned one thing in 16 years as a foreign correspondent, it’s that only stories really matter,” Shadid said. Shadid told the story of Sabah Kerbul, who was killed by his own father and brother in 2003 following the U.S. invasion of Iraq after tribal leaders in his town learned he was an American informant. “Even the prophet Abraham didn’t have to kill his own son,” the father told Shadid in 2003. Shadid was brought to Madison by a joint effort of UW’s Lubar Institute for the Study of Abrahamic Religions and the Center for Journalism Ethics. Stephen Ward, director of the journalism center, called Shadid one of the nation’s “best foreign correspondents.” Shadid was skeptical of American withdrawal from Iraq without addressing the continued violence. “I still think we have an obligation to make a moral reckoning,” he said. AmR (S) 3